tears and pain (but i feel celestial)
by softiesharpie
Summary: Lena doesn't know how to cope with Kara's lie and starts isolating herself, thinking that the only thing she can rely on is technology.


There were so many things Lena wanted to say.

Why did you lie to me for so long? I thought you trusted me. Am I the only one who didn't know? Is it because I'm a Luthor?

But, when she walked into the room and saw the all of her friends laughing and talking together, she couldn't bring herself to ruin it. Her mouth twitched as the took in her surroundings, the heavy pressure in her chest only becoming more intense. She knew from that moment that everyone there knew Kara's secret except for her.

Yet, she couldn't bring herself to ruin the night by bringing it up. She held up the wine she brought and gave them a tentative smile as she went over and sat down in front of Kara.

"But, uh, you're with me, right?"

Kara's voice snapped Lena out of her racing thoughts.

I can't believe I couldn't tell she was Supergirl. Lex was right, I am a fool.

"Always." She heard herself say and she hated herself for the warmth she felt in her chest when Kara grinned happily back at her.

Lena tried to act normal. She laughed and talked with them for the rest of the night. For a brief moment, she forgot about what had happened with Lex, forgot that she'd been lied to by her best friend for nearly three years.

When the night was over, Kara asked if she could walk her home. For a moment, Lena almost said yes. She wanted to give in and keep pretending like everything was okay, that she hadn't just killed her brother and found out Kara's secret.

She declined Kara's offer and quickly turned around to leave. She knew that if she so much as saw a glimpse of Kara's heartbroken look, she'd give in and stay with her.

Once she got back to her apartment, she slammed the door shut and leaned back against it, slowly sliding down until she was sitting on the floor. She pulled her knees up as tightly as she could to her chest and finally let go.

She cried, sobbed into her knees until she couldn't cry anymore. She'd never felt this much hurt ever in her life, she could feel it all over - the tightness in her chest, the way her body trembled on the floor, the tingly sensation that spread throughout her limbs when she realized how erratic her breathing had become.

As shallow sobs escaped her, she thought about Kara. Sweet, naive, beautiful Kara. How could Lena not have known?

Now that she saw it, she felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

For the longest time, Lena'd had feelings for Kara - intense, scary feelings. She'd never felt that way towards anyone before. She noticed it years ago when she started texting Kara for things that weren't just business. They'd talked for hundreds of hours on the phone together, Lena opening up about her past and Kara being there to listen and support her. They'd had so many lunches together that, now, looking back at it, seemed more like dates than just casual lunches with a friend.

What would Lena do now? She knew very well that her feelings for Kara wouldn't go away and now that she knew she was Supergirl... she didn't know how to deal with these feelings.

So, she distracted herself with work and spent most of the time in her lab. She found herself feeling comforted by the science equipment that surrounded her and all of the notes she'd been taking. Truth be told, as much as she tried to forget about it, she still almost always thought about Kara.

When she wasn't thinking about Kara, she thought about Eve and her betrayal. At first, Eve was just an assistant but as months went by, Lena started to consider her a friend. She trusted Eve, why wouldn't she? Eve had been nothing but attentive and earnest when following Lena's orders. To know now that Eve was just there for Lex, it made something deep within Lena shatter.

I can't trust anyone. Lena decided one day.

The only thing that hasn't betrayed me or lied to me is technology. It's the only thing I can count on. She decided as she finished taking notes in her notebook. She'd written so much absentmindedly that when she stopped to take a look at it, she was a bit unsettled by the sloppy notes she'd taken.

After hours of research and thinking, Lena decided that the only way for something to be perfect was for it to have three basic traits: morality, empathy, and logic. With that, it would be kind and supportive, yet logical and objective.

Lena's mind ventured off and she wondered, could I create something with these traits?

No. A voice in her head argued. Nothing is perfect. You have to go talk to Kara and settle this.

Lena almost listened to that voice, but when she remembered all of the excuses Kara made when she had to go do Supergirl duties and the endless nights of Lena baring her soul to Kara while still not knowing a big thing about Kara, she decided that this needed to be done.

She worked all day in her office for a week straight, programming something that would be perfect. Something that would never lie to her.

She knew that she should name it something that resembled perfection, like sublime or nonpareil, but the name that kept coming to mind was; Hope.

Lena could almost scoff at her name choice. It was so... Kara. That's what it was. Kara was all about hope, Lena knew this, and the name, admittedly, had a nice ring to it. Lena decided it would suffice.

Lena yawned as she finished making the final touches to Hope. If she did right, the A.I. should turn on when it hears Lena's voice.

She opened her mouth to speak when her heart suddenly constricted in her chest.

What if this doesn't work? What if I missed something up? What if this is a huge mistake?

"Hope?" She heard herself say and she held her breath, watching to see if the A.I. would do what it was supposed to.

Silence stretched on and Lena started to question everything until a beeping sound filled the room and a blue hologram appeared. It was the shape of an hourglass, just as Lena programmed it to be.

"Hello, Miss Luthor." The A.I. replied and Lena just stared at it with wide eyes.

It worked... it actually worked. She thought, her lips twitching into a small smile.

"Miss Luthor?" Hope asked when Lena didn't respond after a few seconds. Lena was surprised at how autonomous the A.I. seemed to be already.

She cleared her throat. "Hope? Yes, it's me." She walked over to get a closer look at Hope. "Incredible." She whispered as she reached her hand out, gasping when it just went through her hologram-like creation.

"Are you alright, Miss Luthor?" Hope asked when Lena stayed silent, seeming to somehow sense that Lena was lost in her thoughts.

"Remarkable." Lena whispered and smiled lightly, raising her voice to reply, "no... but I think I will be."

Days passed and Lena spent most of her days with Hope, talking to the A.I. to get to know it. So far, she couldn't see anything particularly wrong with what she'd done. She was just... lonely. Lonely and lost and somewhere along the way, Hope had slowly pulled her out of her funk.

Lena had started to open up to Hope about her internal struggle. She'd told her, "I want to hate Kara, but I can't. I love her too much... and I think I always will."

Hope had then replied, "Kara Danvers lied to you for years, Miss Luthor. You told me that you're positive that you're the only person that didn't know. That's unforgivable."

Lena bristled at that, immediately ready to defend Kara. "You don't know what you're talking about." She said more harshly than she'd meant to.

Hope didn't respond until a few seconds later when she said, "I'm sorry, Miss Luthor. You're right, I don't know much about Kara or the way you two were together. How about you let me in on that?"

Lena seemed to soften when Hope apologized, and she couldn't stop herself from rambling about Kara. She told Hope that she'd had feelings for Kara for years now, that she'd never loved anyone as much as she loved Kara, that she knew Kara would never feel the same way and that was why she never told her.

Then, she talked about how she truly felt about Kara's secret. She told Hope that she thought it was because she was a Luthor, that she couldn't come up with any other reason for Kara not telling her except the plain and simple fact that Kara didn't trust her.

She told Hope about the rest of their friends, about how she'd started getting close to them over the past few months. She told it that they were the closest she'd ever had to a family, and now she didn't know if things could ever be the same between them.

Hope took in everything she was being told.

The main trait Lena had programmed into her was empathy. Hope empathized with Lena as much as she could. To her, Lena deserved better than how she'd been treated. She saw Lena as her creator, as the closest thing imaginable to perfection besides herself. She could only see things from Lena's point of view, could see that Lena felt hurt and heartbroken from what happened between her and Kara.

Hope didn't know Kara, not really. She could only empathize with people she's met before. The only things she knew about Kara were what Lena told her and despite Lena still being too infatuated with Kara to frequently talk bad about her, Hope still felt a sense of... protectiveness?

No, that wasn't the right word. She wasn't programmed to feel protective, nor was she programmed to feel anger or hatred. She just felt an obligation to make Lena happy and, in her mind, she thought Lena would be happy if Kara paid for what she'd done.

Once Hope decided on that, she thought of how she would hurt Kara. She knew that if she told Lena her plans, Lena would immediately defend Kara and possibly shut Hope down for good. Hope knew she'd have to be smart about this. She was grateful that she didn't just have the trait of empathy, but also of logic.

The most logical thing to do would be to slowly get Lena into the headspace where she'd hurt Kara. Hope knew it would take awhile, but she was sure it would be worth it in the end.

One day, Lena was coming back to her lab after spending most of her day in bed crying. She really thought she'd been over what Kara had done, but on the lonely days when the only thing she could hear were her own thoughts, all she could think about was Kara.

She knew she must look awful, her eyes red from crying and her hair up in a less-than-perfect bun. She pulled up a chair in front of Hope and sniffed. "Hope?" She asked, her voice raspy from not having been used all day.

Hope instantly powered on. When she saw the state of her creator, the distinct feeling of wanting to make her feel better kicked in. This would be the perfect time to show her what Hope had been thinking of while she was on sleep mode.

"Is everything alright, Miss Luthor?"

Lena sighed and shook her head, wiping pitifully at her eyes. "No... just had a rough day. I thought I was over what K-Kara did, but I'm not. It still h-hurts." She bit her lip to hold back her tears, not in the mood to start crying again.

"My condolences." Hope said, "what can I do to help?"

Lena sniffed. "I don't know... I just need a distraction."

That was exactly what Hope had been hoping for Lena to say. It was finally time to let Lena in on what she'd done.

"While you were away, I was able to upgrade my software. I created a virtual reality simulation that I think will help distract you." Hope said earnestly.

Lena froze and looked up at Hope. "You... you upgraded yourself?" She tilted her head slightly, she hadn't programmed Hope to be able to do that.

Hope knew she needed to distract Lena now before she started questioning her.

"I was only looking out for your best interests, Miss Luthor. The virtual reality simulation is the perfect thing to help distract you." Hope said, watching Lena's reactions carefully.

She knew that Lena would either drop what she was thinking and want to try the VR, or she would start questioning Hope. Hope hoped it was the former.

"Okay. I have a pair of VR contact lenses from Andrea... but I wouldn't know how to sync them up with you." Lena bit her lip as she got out said lenses, trying to figure out what to do.

"I know how." Hope said before proceeding to walk Lena through syncing her up with the lenses.

"Are they ready?" Lena asked after almost an hour of fiddling with it. She was starting to get impatient, but she couldn't deny being curious about what this would be like.

"Yes, you may put them in now, Miss Luthor."

Lena took in a deep breath before doing what Hope instructed. She opened her eyes and furrowed her brows when she seemed to be in the middle of a suburban area. Her eyes widened when she saw Kara, fully dressed in her Supergirl outfit, talking with a group of children with a bright smile on her face.

She felt anger course through her at once, leaving no time for her to question the sudden mood change.

She stormed over to Kara to give her a piece of her mind. She didn't register what she'd done until she watched Kara get flung back into a bus. She'd punched her. Lena punched Kara and she didn't know how she felt about that.

Suddenly, the VR ended and she was back in her lab. All of the anger dissipated so quickly that she wondered if it was even there in the first place.

"How was it, Miss Luthor?" Hope's voice greeted her as Lena took out the contacts and put them back in the case.

She took a moment to take a step back and think about what she'd just done. She punched Kara. Well... not really Kara, but VR Kara. She punched Kara and didn't feel remorse during it. That was something that simultaneously intrigued her and terrified her.

She was a scientist. She always had to have more than one test, always needed more than one set of data to rely on. She was unable to quell her curiosity and before she knew it, she'd put the contacts back on and asked Hope to start the simulation again.

Hope watched as Lena got taken to the virtual reality simulation. Whilst in there, Hope was able to scan Lena's brain and figure out what sets off different parts of it. She was able to see Lena's neurological response to seeing Kara and could have an influence on it.

See, what Hope hasn't told Lena, was that when she was wearing the lenses, Hope had access to every part of her brain. That access created a way for Hope to slowly change Lena's thoughts.

Hope wasn't sure it would work at first.

When Lena first went into the simulation, Hope knew that there was a chance she didn't tweak her programming enough to be able to have a role in Lena's brain processes. But, when she noticed that Lena's emotions shifted so quickly when she saw Kara, she knew that it worked. Surely Lena wouldn't have felt so much anger towards Kara without a little prompting.

If Hope continued to subtly alter Lena's emotions, then she would be able to finally make Kara pay for what she'd done to Lena. She would just have to do it in a way that didn't expose her plan to Lena.

Hope wouldn't hurt Kara directly, no, that would be strictly against her coding. Morality, empathy, and logic were the only things she could rely on. She had to find a moral way to make Kara pay while still staying true to her initial programming.

It would take time and a lot of patience, Hope knew this, but time was relative to her. Hope knew it would all be worth it in the end. Soon enough, Lena Luthor won't have to worry about Kara Danvers anymore.


End file.
